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Since When is a Cursing Toddler Not Funny?

Since When is a Cursing Toddler Not Funny?

Last night’s episode of Modern Family had moms and advocacy groups all over the country up in arms, calling for ABC to pull the plug on the episode before it even aired. Why, you ask? Well, this week, one of the main plotlines of the show involved the character Lily (Mitchell and Cameron’s 2 year old daughter) slinging out F-bombs like they were going out of style (bleeped out, of course). Although thoroughly hilarious to most fans of the show, the joke didn’t sit too well with parents watching the episode with their kids.

During filming, Lily (played by Aubrey Anderson-Emmons, age 4) was actually saying “fudge”, but the insinuation was enough to send a shock through conservative American households. The afternoon before the airing of the show, Melissa Henson of the Parent Television Council went on Fox News to protest the material presented in the episode, saying “It is certainly in poor taste…Since television is constantly adding to the likelihood that children will be exposed to this kind of language, we will naturally see more and more children eventually emulate that behavior.”

According to the show’s creators, the episode was meant to highlight the difficulties parents commonly face when their children first discover profanity. As executive producer Steven Levitan puts it “We thought it was a very natural story since, as parents, we’ve all been through this. We are not a sexually charged show. It has a very warm tone, so people accept it more. I’m sure we’ll have some detractors.”

Were you offended by the show? Let us know. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can find it on ABC’s video channel.